Death Cab for Cutie
by elfinblue
Summary: When an NCIS agent witnesses something that has him questioning his sanity, Gibbs and his team turn to some old friends for expert help. This is set in the same universe as When Worlds Collide, but is AU in that NCIS now knows about the supernatural. Includes NCIS-NOLA characters. No slash or pairings. Rated Teen for safety. NOW COMPLETE
1. Kansas

**Author's note part one:** Hi guys! Sorry I've been away so long. I'm probably only back now for this one, not terribly long, story. When I finished the last Supernatural fanfiction story I was working on, I noted that something had happened that was going to prevent me from playing with fanfiction too much. At the time I couldn't say what that was. I can now, and I'll have more on that at the end of this chapter.

As for this story, it's set vaguely in the current season for both shows, so expect spoilers for everything that's aired to date. I'm not going to go too far off the rails as far as what's happened on the shows, but I'm still calling this AU because in this universe NCIS now knows about (and accepts) the supernatural.

I've been watching some of NCIS: New Orleans and enjoying it, so I thought I'd mix them in a bit. If you haven't been watching it, I'll try to be clear enough with the characters and setting that you'll still be able to follow.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!

*#*#*#*#

**Death Cab For Cutie**

_Chapter One: Kansas_

In the satellite images, the path down from the highway showed as a pale, white line. In person, the turnoff was almost impossible to see. If they hadn't known it was there, the two men in the dark blue rental sedan would have driven right by. It led to a bare, empty parking area, tucked below the highway. The dirty, pink/brown concrete and rusted iron facade of an old power plant loomed overhead.

They were on the outskirts of Lebanon, Kansas, with a busy, modern city just a few blocks away. Here, though, the world seemed deserted. The highway above them was not heavily trafficked and in the winter, even temperate as it had been, there were no sounds of insects nor birdsong to break the silence.

NCIS senior field agent Anthony DiNozzo climbed out from behind the wheel and paused, one foot still in the car and his arm braced on the top of the door, to look around. The parking area was slightly muddy, hard-packed earth lightly scattered with gravel. Dead, yellow weeds climbed the embankments and an iron door, set in a concrete wall in the earth at the bottom of a short flight of steps, looked more like a mausoleum than anything.

"No sign of the Impala," he said.

Timothy McGee, exiting the other side of the car, was looking down at his phone.

"They're in the area, or at least Sam was. Abby found him on the security video at a grocery store five blocks away less than two hours ago."

The two men circled the car and approached the door.

"You know, Tim," Tony said, his voice serious, "I just wanted to tell you how impressed I am with how well you've adapted to learning that the supernatural is real."

McGee shot him an annoyed glance. "There's no such thing as supernatural," he declared.

Tony stopped in his tracks and turned to his friend, but McGee waved off his objections and continued.

"There's no such thing as supernatural. I will use the term for want of a better word for these things, and because we all understand what we mean when we use it. But there is nothing that is truly supernatural, i.e. outside nature. The fact that we now have irrefutable proof of-"

"The supernatural," Tony prompted, earning a glare.

"-it just means that there are natural laws we don't understand yet and that the universe is more vast and complex than we had ever imagined. It does not invalidate science. It just means we need to re-think our scientific assumptions. Being able to change your theories to allow for new data is and always has been one of the founding principals of science itself. The reality of these..._things_, that changes nothing."

"Whatever teddy bear helps you sleep at night," Tony said, and led the way down the steps to the door.

Over a year had passed since they'd caught the Winchesters, believed to be serial killers and believed to be dead. NCIS had been instrumental in exhonorating them, thinking them to be well-meaning but misguided fanatics of a strange religion who had stumbled into conflict with high-tech terrorists. It wasn't until after the brothers had disappeared back into the wilds of the Midwest that Abby discovered a series of books called Supernatural, also known as the Winchester Gospels. In the aftermath of reading them and verifying that everything in the books had actually happened, apparently at the same time it was being written, even McGee had been forced to adjust his world view.

Tony raised his fist and pounded on the metal. He could feel the vibrations through his hand, but heard no sound. He wondered if the soundproofing was physical or accomplished with a spell of some sort.

McGee tugged at his sleeve and nodded up at the corner of the door. A modern security camera was set into the old wall.

"Say cheese."

Tony gave the camera his trademark smile and a moment later the door swung silently open and big Sam Winchester filled the entryway. Tony studied him. He wore a long-sleeved henley and his dark hair was longer than Tony remembered. He looked exhausted and worried but hard, determined.

He looked from one man to the other, concerned, as if he could read their minds.

Tony was at least 75% certain that he could not.

"Agents. This is...unexpected. To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"We need to talk," Tony said. "May we come in?"

Sam stepped back and they went past him, onto a circular balcony that looked out over the first rooms of the Men of Letters' bunker. Tony didn't have to exaggerate his reaction.

"Oh, wow! It really is the Batcave!"

McGee, beside him, was looking over the antique computers and electronic equipment. "This is amazing! You know who should see this? Abby! Abby would love this!"

Footsteps sounded in the depth of the building and Dean Winchester appeared from one of the doorways.

"Sam? Are you talking to...oh." He went still, studied the agents. Tony could see caution in his body language, and resignation and despair. He straightened his shoulders and put on the ghost of a smile but it wasn't fooling anyone. If Sam looked tired and worried, Dean looked wrecked. He'd lost weight. His eyes were haunted.

"Fellas," he said. "So, ah, should I ask how you found us?"

Tony went on down the staircase, aware of the others following as he took the battered paperback from his inner pocket and waved it at the elder Winchester.

"Well, it helped that your biographer practically gave us your address."

"Seriously," McGee said. "You should get this woman-Becky?-to edit a little more thoroughly. For your own safety. I mean, okay, most people don't have satellite surveillance and access to local security cameras, but still..."

Tony went up to Dean without fear, took his arm and turned it over. "So, is the mark as lurid in real life as it is on the book cover?"

"What did you want?" Sam asked, his voice like granite.

Tony answered without turning, keeping his eyes on Dean. "Two things," he said. He held up one finger. "One, we'd like you to come to New Orleans with us and help us with a missing persons case that may be work of a vengeful spirit. Two," he added a second finger, "there are some things about Claire's friend Randy that you should know."

"If you know about the mark and you know about Randy," Dean said, his voice ragged, "then you know it's not safe for me to go to New Orleans or anywhere else."

"I don't know how much you remember about the massacre," McGee said. "The book suggests that you basically blacked out when the mark took over and the next thing you knew everyone in the room but you was dead. Was that how it happened?"

Dean shrugged, looked away and wouldn't meet anyone's eye. "I guess."

"Do you remember the part where you begged them to stop but they knocked you down and attacked you?"

"_They_ attacked _him_?" Sam asked, voice cautious. "So it was self defense."

"The FBI investigation did a reconstruction of the fight. It backs up the account in the book. It was self defense."

Dean snorted, derisive. "Randy wasn't self defense. Poor bastard was tied up."

"Yeah," Tony said. "Well, I don't think you need to feel too bad about Randy." He put the book back in his pocket and wandered around the room, touching things, marvelling. "Do you know why the loan shark guys were after him?"

"He didn't have their money?"

"Obviously. But the _reason_ he didn't have their money was because his latest business deal fell through. See, he'd lured in this 17-year-old runaway and he'd already sold her to a rich, South American business man, but she got picked up and put back in a group home before he could deliver and get paid."

The Winchesters both froze.

"I'm sorry?" Sam said. "Sold her? As in...human trafficking? You're talking about Claire, right?"

"His computer's been a gold mine," McGee said. "The FBI thought they'd hit the jackpot with the other dead guys. Running their DNA and fingerprints through the national database, they've solved something like fourteen homicides, twice that many assaults, sexual assaults, one guy was a serial rapist. Then they started going through Randy's computer."

"And he was going to sell Claire to be somebody's sex slave?"

"Yeah, she was a lot older than his usual targets." Tony tossed the observation over his shoulder, wandering deeper into the bunker. The next room was a magnificent library. The senior field agent dropped into a chair at one of the tables and waited for the others to join him.

Dean Winchester looked like he was about to fall down.

The other three men came in behind him and took seats. "He wasn't usually the one who procured the victims," McGee was saying. "He was normally involved with smuggling them through customs, into and out of the country. With the information on his hard drive, federal agencies are looking to break up a child pornography ring that involves over 300 people in 27 different countries. Working with Interpol and foreign police agencies, they've already rescued dozens of endangered children."

"It's great that you're rescuing the kids," Dean said, "but that doesn't excuse-"

"Oh, for the love of Pete, don't be a drama queen," Tony said, cutting him off.

Dean's eyes widened. "What?"

"If some moron went in the cage with a rabid tiger and poked it until it tore them to pieces, would that be the tiger's fault? You were affected by an outside influence. Non compos mentos. Some bad people died. Some innocent kids got rescued from hell on earth as a result. No jury on the planet would convict you and maybe, just maybe, God isn't quite as gone as you all think he is."

Dean was staring at him, gaze level and eyes narrowed.

"Drama queen?"

Sam tilted his head, allowed a trace of amusement to slip through. "Well, you know, you _are_-"

"Can it, Princess," Dean told him shortly. "I have been dealing with your hormones since you hit puberty and, believe me, you have no room to talk." He switched his attention back to the NCIS agents. "And, whatever the truth is about Randy and his scuzzy friends, that still doesn't mean I won't lose it and attack someone else. It's not a risk worth taking."

"We won't let you get surrounded and attacked by douche bags. I promise. We'll keep you under surveillance at all times. You'll just be there as consultants."

"Why do you even need us?" Sam asked. "I thought the military was going to put together their own team of hunters. Seal Team 666? Or something?"

"Well, we at NCIS," Tony indicated himself and McGee, "don't have the security clearance to know about that, although a little bird did tell us that that project got delayed because their training officer is now a...domesticated werewolf?"

"Ah, yeah."

"Anyway, the point is that in order for this case to even get to them we'd have to go through regular channels, which means that by the time someone who knows about the supernatural sees it a lot of people who don't will have seen it as well."

"You don't want that to happen. Why? What's going on?"

Tony leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head and got comfortable. "It all started, so far as NCIS is concerned, a couple of weeks ago, late one night, on a narrow, little lane just off Bourbon Street..."

*#*#*#*#

**Author's note #2:** Well, that's it for the first chapter. I'm looking at this being five or six chapters, tops, as I'm almost literally stealing the time to write it.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the story, when I said last spring that I was going to have to stop writing fanfiction for the time being I couldn't say why, but now I can. Many of you assumed something bad had happened, but actually it was just the opposite.

After dreaming of writing professionally all my life and actively working towards it for years, I finally got an offer from a publisher. My agent spent the next few months on contract negotiations and in August I signed a three-book deal with Midnight Ink, a small publisher in Minnesota that specializes in mystery and suspense. As I write this, my first book, Death and the Redheaded Woman, is coming out in less than a week. (In fact, part of the reason I'm writing this now is because I need something to distract myself before I become a *complete* basket case!)

I know this is a fanfiction site and you don't come on here to hear about other things, but if anyone's interested I've updated my user profile and included my real name and a link to my website.

Thanks again for reading and I'll try to have the second chapter up in a day or two.


	2. Train They Call The City of New Orleans

Author's note: Hi, everyone! Thanks to everyone who's favorited, followed, and/or reviewed. Also, thanks to everyone who's wished me luck with my book! It officially comes out in three days. You know that thing Dean does when his car goes missing? That's pretty much me right now. ;) I'm sorry I can't respond to everyone individually! I'm just crazy swamped!

As a couple of people have noted, I've taken liberties with the books extending past season five. It seemed the simplest way to have the NCIS crew know what was going on with the Winchesters.

I'd intended for this to be a longer chapter, but I came to a stopping place and wanted to get something more out there for you to read. More action coming in chapter three and I'll get it up as soon as I can.

Thanks again!

**Death Cab For Cutie**

*#*#*#*#

Chapter Two: A Train They Call The City Of New Orleans

_Two weeks earlier:_

Although, by birth, a 'Bama boy, NCIS agent Christopher LaSalle had settled deep into the rythym of life in the Big Easy. It was nearly three in the morning and well past closing time, but he knew a bar where the back door would still be open, just for him. Whistling through his teeth, he turned off Bourbon Street and into a dead-end lane that was little more than an alley. An old gym bag he carried over one shoulder rattled with his easy gait. The night was soft, mild even in winter, with a light mist blurring the lamplights.

A cab waited at the other end of the lane, engine running. Christopher watched it as he walked towards it, his attention caught by the age of the vehicle and the condition it was in. The car was old-'30's or '40's old-but this was no restored classic. It was battered to the point that it barely looked drivable. One headlight was dimmer than the other and he could see the roof sagging. The young agent shook his head in dismay. Pity that someone would get hold of an old classic like that and then drive it into the ground instead of repairing it.

He drew abreast of the vehicle and it spluttered and backfired. The engine revved and a shadowy figure in the front seat leaned towards him.

Christopher turned aside, having reached his own destination, but stopped at the doorway and looked back. A few buildings down a door opened and closed. There was no sidewalk here, just a curb separating the buildings from the street. A man, emerging from the shadows, staggered over the curb, cursed drunkenly, and stumbled towards the cab. LaSalle's trained eyes noted that the stranger was young and intoxicated and that the wore the uniform of an American sailor. He half fell against the side of the cab, wrestled the door open.

The smell of the swamp filled the lane, plants and fish and water, growing things and things that were dead.

The sailor got in and closed the door and Christopher worried, wondering, because Christopher LaSalle was a good guy, wondering if he needed to make sure the man got home okay. He turned back indecisively to the door in front of him and rested his hand on the latch. The motor of the old car revved and in that instant a horrified scream, a wail of pain and terror and despair, ripped apart the peaceful night and echoed all along the narrow canyon of old brickwork.

LaSalle spun, reaching for his gun, ready to dive into wherever the danger was and save whoever needed saving from whatever was menacing them. But there was nowhere to go, nothing to fight and no one to save.

The dilapidated old antique cab and its occupants were gone as if they'd never been there.

It wasn't possible for the car to have gotten to the end of the lane and turned off yet, and Christopher swore under his breath in disbelief. He jogged down to the corner and looked both ways along Bourbon Street, but there was no sign of the cab.

The side street was silent. It seemed LaSalle could feel rather than hear the scream echoing between the buildings. The atmosphere jangled with discord and his breath and heartbeat were erratic with the jolt of adrenaline. He looked up. Even at this time of night there were lighted windows in some of the apartments over the bistros and bodegas. No one looked out to see what the noise had been.

Slowly he retraced his steps, stopping to look at the spot under the last streetlight where the cab had waited. There were no tracks. It had gone without a trace.

In the distance a dog howled, thin and long, and first one and then another joined in until there was a chorus, wailing in surprising harmony. It should have been lonesome and it should have been mournful, but what Christopher LaSalle thought it really sounded like was relief.

SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS

"This LaSalle, had he been drinking?"

DiNozzo sighed. "Unfortunately, no."

The response drew raised eyebrows.

"Unfortunately?" Sam asked.

"LaSalle's a good agent," Tony said. "Experienced. Rock solid."

"But?" Dean prompted.

"But," McGee said, "Christopher LaSalle has an older brother, Cade, who has been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. He went off his meds and disappeared for several years and LaSalle used every means at his disposal to search for him."

Neither of the Winchesters said anything, but the glance they exchanged spoke volumes.

"His brother's illness is well known," Tony picked up the coffee cup that sat in front of him on the library table, but paused before taking a sip, looking at them wryly over the rim. "Word gets out that Chris has been seeing ghosts-"

"Everybody figures the crazy runs in the family."

"Not crazy," Sam objected. "Mental illness is an illness, just like pneumonia or-"

"I know that," Dean said. "I'm not saying what _I'm_ saying. I'm saying what someone less enlightened than me would say."

"The federal law enforcement community is surprisingly small," McGee said. "It would take very little to trash a good agent's reputation."

"Poor guy's even doubting himself," Tony said. "If there wasn't really a missing sailor, he'd have probably checked himself into a psych ward by now."

"So who's in on this?" Dean asked. "And what do we know about the case so far?"

"NCIS New Orleans is a small office, and kind of on the bizarre side, but in a good way. There are only three agents, LaSalle, his partner, Merriweather Brody, and the agent-in-charge, Dwayne "King" Pride."

"King?"

"It's a nickname," Tony explained. "Because...something New Orleans-ish. I didn't really understand. He's an old friend of Gibbs' and a bit of a character. You'll love him. He cooks."

"So it's just those three who are involved?" Sam asked.

"Also the Jefferson Parish coroner and her assistant. NCIS contracts autopsies and forensics through their office and they're like part of the family. When LaSalle contacted Pride and told him what happened, their first thought was that someone had roofied him. Dr. Wade ran a series of blood tests, but they came up clean. That was before they got the missing persons report on the sailor. Not knowing where to turn next, Pride called Gibbs and here we are."

"And we're sure it was the same sailor that LaSalle saw get into the disappearing taxi?"

"He'd been drinking in a bar at the end of the dead-end street where LaSalle was walking. He passed out in one of the booths and his friends moved on without him. The owner found him after closing time and called him a cab, but by the time the cabbie got there he was already gone."

SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS

It was a fifteen and a half hour drive from Lebanon, Kansas, to New Orleans, Louisiana. They left early in the morning and drove in shifts, the two Winchesters trading off when they stopped for gas or to grab something to eat.

"You know, you could let us help with the driving," Tony said. "Or, me anyway."

Dean just looked at him.

"What?"

"You towed my car, Dude. Don't think I've forgotten that you towed my car."

Tony huffed out a breath. "No, I _trailered_ your car. I'm a perfectly responsible driver you know. _And_ I have a great love of classic cars. I used to have a Mustang myself, you know."

"Before it blew up," McGee butted in unhelpfully. "It's not like you've destroyed three of your own cars or anything. Except, oh, wait. It is. You have."

"Shut, up, Tim."

"I, on the other hand, have an excellent driving record. Did you know I drive a Porsche?"

Dean was driving with Sam riding shotgun and the NCIS agents in the back seat. He looked up and caught McGee's eye in the rear view mirror.

"That's cute. Are you going to trade up to a real car some day?"

McGee glowered. Tony snickered and Sam smirked and no one commented on the fact that Dean's humor rang hollow. He wore a mask. Perhaps he always had, but it no longer fit the way it once had and the bleakness in his eyes shone through.

At the next exit they stopped for gas. At the truck stop diner Dean ordered a chicken salad and a glass of vegetable juice and got a side of odd looks/hold the comment from Tony. When they got back on the road Sam took the wheel. Dean sat in the back with Tony and they spoke in quiet tones of missing friends and lost opportunities and dreams that didn't work out as planned.

"Do you ever hear from Ziva?" Dean asked.

"Not directly. Gibbs and McGee both lost their fathers recently. I don't know how she found out, but she sent flowers to the funerals. No signature on the cards, just a few words in Hebrew, but I'd know her handwriting anywhere."

"We were sorry to hear about old man Gibbs," Dean said. "We didn't know about your dad, McGee. I'm sorry. What happened?"

"Cancer," McGee said. "Not unexpected, but still rough. I wish now I'd talked to him more, fought with him less..."

Sam tipped his head and shrugged slightly. "I know that feeling. Just...learn from the experience and don't keep making that same mistake, like I did."

"Okay, this is getting really maudlin!" Dean said.

"Maudlin?" Sam teased. "Now who swallowed a dictionary?"

"Shut up."

"How did you know about Gibbs, Senior?"

"Really, Tony?" McGee mocked. "I imagine they have us on Google alert."

"Actually, no," Sam said, amused. "Remember before, we were worried that demons might be after you or your families? We had a hunter keeping an eye on Mr. Gibbs. She got hooked on the homemade fudge he sold in his store and since then, every time she was in the area, she'd stop in and get some. She's the one who heard and let us know."

"Tim's got a hot girlfriend," Tony offered, changing the subject.

"I do," McGee agreed. "Though, unfortunately we're having to have a long-distance relationship. She took a promotion that got her stationed in Dubai."

"But it's better that it's a long-distance relationship," Tony said, "because she really is too hot for McPaleface. When she was living in D.C. and they were together all the time, he came in every day with third degree burns just from being in her presence."

"Very funny, Tony," McGee said. "I'm going to tell Delilah that you said that."

"Ooh. Delilah," Dean teased. "Even her name is hot."

"Delilah will agree with me."

"Yeah, actually. She probably will. And, fellas, Tony is also seeing someone. An ATF agent. Her name is Zoe."

Dean gave the senior field agent an appraising stare. "Is that right?"

Tony raised one shoulder and ducked his head, acting almost bashful. "We're just going to see what happens."

"Mostly what happens is he forgets his handcuffs at her place and she has to bring them to him at work."

"Now, look here," Tony protested, as the Winchesters laughed, "that has only happened once or twice-"

"A week," McGee said.

"Hey! Dude!" Dean said. "If you're a man-slut, you're a man-slut. Wear it with pride."

Tony glanced over at him, tipped up one side of his mouth, and spoke with quiet sincerity. "I just don't want to screw up this time."

When they pulled into New Orleans, it was after ten o'clock at night and Leroy Jethro Gibbs was waiting for them at NCIS headquarters.


	3. Born On The Bayou

**Author's note: **Hey, everyone! Thanks again to everyone who's favorited, followed, and/or reviewed! Sorry I can't answer everyone personally! My book officially released Sunday and it's just been crazy! I don't know whether to jump up and down, hyperventilate, or burst into tears. Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy it!

**Death Cab For Cutie**

**#*#*#*#***

Chapter Three: Born On The Bayou

"Ghosts," Christopher LaSalle said, skepticism in his voice.

He stood on the curb, a few feet from where the disappearing cab had sat idling, and watched while the Winchesters examined the area. His teammates flanked him, a rumpled-looking older man who had been introduced as King Pride and a pretty woman, small and birdlike. She was bright and sharp and she reminded Dean of a finely-crafted sword. He wondered how many bad guys had gone down because they thought she'd be the easy target.

"Best guess," Sam said, "based on what you've told us so far, yeah. It sounds like a spirit. Mind you, it would have to be a powerful spirit. Carrying off a grown man like that."

"Your gizmo's beeping," Tony pointed out, "if that's not too personal an observation."

Sam gave him a faint smile and waved the device in his hand. It was Dean's homemade EMF meter, fashioned from an old Walkman. "Like I said, powerful. Even after all this time, we're getting traces of EMF."

"That's not all there's traces of."

Sam turned to Dean, squatting at the edge of the road, where the curve of the street surface met the curb, forming a shallow gutter. A thick, mucuous-like substance coated the asphalt, partly dry and nearly invisible in the dim light. The NCIS agents gathered around them.

Dean hesitated, then drew a large knife from some recess within his clothing. Sam placed a hand on his arm, not restraining so much as offering silent support. Going down to one knee, Dean scraped a long, stringy glop of the stuff loose and held it up.

"What is that?" McGee asked. "Don't say ectoplasm."

"It's that stuff you just said not to say," Dean offered.

Tony slapped McGee lightly on the shoulder with the back of his hand. "Don't just stand there, McVenkman. Get a sample."

"Yuck. No. I'm not going to get a sample of that!"

"You want to tell Abby that the Winchesters found ectoplasm and you didn't bring her any?"

"Why don't you get a sample?"

"McGee! Come on! This is an important scientific discovery. You have the opportunity to study actual, honest-to-God ectoplasm under a microscope! Something this important calls for an expert touch. A real scientist! Not just an amateur dabbler like me."

His partner was not swayed. "You give yourself too little credit, Tony. Take it from me, you are more qualified than anyone to collect glorified snot."

The Winchesters were listening in with amusement.

"You have an evidence bag?" Sam asked.

"Uh, yeah."

McGee dug out an evidence bag and handed it over. Sam held it open and Dean expertly slipped the substance off his knife and into the bag. He wiped the knife on his knee, making McGee wince, and Sam sealed the bag, took a felt-tip pen from his pocket and wrote the date, time, and location on the label. He handed it off to McGee.

"So what, exactly, is ectoplasm?" Pride asked, "and I can't believe that question just crossed my lips."

Gibbs, standing a little to one side, smirked and spoke without looking over. "Don't worry about it, my brother. Spend enough time around these two and you'll get used to the weird."

"I don't know that it's ever been studied by an actual scientist," Sam said. "I'll be interested to hear what Abby makes of it."

"Geeks," Dean said. "Casper blows his nose and you have a field day."

"But what about the disappearing car?" LaSalle persisted. "More importantly, what about the disappearing sailor?"

"When you're dealing with a pissed off spirit, which is what this looks like based on what we know so far, the first thing you have to do is figure out whose spirit it is. Locate their grave, salt and burn their bones, and usually that sends them on their way. It might not save your missing sailor," Dean gave the young NCIS agent a steady look, compassionate but frank. "There's a very good chance that he's already beyond saving. But it'll prevent anyone else becoming a victim. And, hopefully, when we find out who the ghost is and what happened to them, that'll give us a lead on what became of the guy they grabbed."

"And how are we supposed to do that?"

"Same way you solve any case," Gibbs said. "You work the evidence."

_NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN_

"With a vengeful spirit," Sam Winchester said, "there are basically four possibilities. One is that the spirit was somehow connected to Seaman Albright personally. Someone he knew, someone he was related to, someone he had encountered at some point. We'll need to look into his background and see if anyone turns up who had ties to a 1940's era taxicab. The second possibility is that the spirit is connected to the place and Albright was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nothing I've seen so far suggests that there's any tradition of that dead-end street being haunted by a disappearing cab, but we should probably look into that further. The third possibility, and probably the most remote, is that the spirit is tied to an object. Talk to Albright's family and shipmates, see if you can find out if he recently acquired anything unusual - vintage car parts, maybe, or antique jewelry? The most likely scenario, though, is that he was targeted because he fits some sort of criteria."

"Ghosts have victim profiles?" Brody asked, just a touch of skepticism in her voice.

"Almost invariably," Sam said. "If this is a vengeful spirit and it grabbed your Seaman Albright, the odds are overwhelming that it's taken other people in the past. Did you get the missing persons reports I asked for?"

Brody leaned back against her desk and clicked the remote control, putting a seemingly-endless list up on the giant plasma screen. "Chris said the car looked like it was from the forties, so I went all the way back. This is every person I could find who's gone missing from New Orleans in the last seventy-five years."

"So now we look for missing persons who look like Albright?" McGee wasn't so much asking as stating.

"Look like him or have something else in common."

"Yeah. Right. How hard can that be?"

_SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS_

"What shape were the headlights?"

"They's different shapes," LaSalle said. "The one on the driver's side was big and round and fairly bright, but the one on the passenger's side was dimmer and shaped more like an oval."

"Like this?" Dean sketched two headlights in on the drawing he was making of the phantom cab. "That about right?"

"About, yeah."

Dean tapped the paper. "Passenger-side light had fallen from the socket and was hanging by the wires. That's why it looked dim and the shape was wrong. You were seeing it on edge instead of straight on like you're supposed to. Can you describe the grill for me?"

LaSalle closed his eyes and concentrated. "I get an impression of horizontal bars, pretty good thickness, with one vertical bar in the middle."

Dean added a few more lines to his drawing and LaSalle nodded.

"Y'all know," the southerner said, "I can't help but feeling this ghost business is just y'all pulling a prank on me to keep me busy until the little men in white coats get here."

"Our pranks aren't that subtle," Tony DiNozzo said. "You'll know we've pranked you when you wake up naked on someone's front lawn, glued to a plastic pelican in a compromising position."

LaSalle gave him a dubious frown. "You ever really done that to someone?"

"No. But now I really want to."

"Anything else you noticed about the car?" Dean asked. "Anything at all?"

Christopher leaned over to look at the picture. "There was an old-fashioned taxi sign on the top. It sat at an angle because the roof was partly caved on on the passenger side. Also, there were strips of chrome along the fender. I remember that because one of them was loose and bent out at an angle. I had to step around it to get to the door I was headed for."

"How many?"

LaSalle closed his eyes, remembering. "Three."

"Yup, thought so." Dean leaned back in his chair and called across the NCIS office. "Hey, Sam! You're looking for a 1948 Chevy Fleetmaster Sports Sedan."

"You sure about that?" Brody called back.

"He's sure," Sam said. He leaned over and punched buttons on the computer on the desk. "So we can get rid of anyone who went missing before '48."

McGee was studying his own laptop. "I'm getting quite a few hits on cabdrivers, but none of them driving anything that old. Mostly, they show up as witnesses. I've got one driver who disappeared in the seventies. Police tracked down a rumor that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got caught in a mob hit. They were never able to confirm it. His body was supposedly dumped in an alligator farm."

"See?" Dean said. "What kind of crazy mind does it take to come up with an idea like farming alligators? You're supposed to farm things that you can eat. Not things that can eat you."

"The same kind of crazy mind that came up with gumbo and Mardi Gras," Pride said, coming in from the kitchen with a big pot held between two hot pads. Gibbs followed with a stack of bowls and spoons. "Chow time."

"I gotta tell you," Dean said, "their office down here in New Orleans is a lot cooler than your office up in D.C."

"That's 'cause _we're_ cooler," LaSalle said.

"We'll let you think that," Tony replied, "but only because your boss is about to feed us."

As Dean moved his drawing supplies off the table and the others came over, Brody cast a glance over her shoulder at the picture of the missing sailor still up on the plasma.

"Well, if there is a victim profile, I hope it isn't just appearance. Because you know who Albright looks like?"

"Oh, no," LaSalle said.

"I noticed that," Sam agreed. "Same height, same build, same coloring. His face is even shaped the same."

"I don't see it," Christopher argued.

"If you didn't see it, you wouldn't be denying it before anyone even said what they're thinking," Gibbs observed dryly.

"Dude," Dean said, "he could be your little brother. You're gonna have to be on your toes, LaSalle. Because when you saw Casper, Casper saw you. If he-or she-is looking for guys that look like you, you're gonna be on the radar for sure."

_SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS_

"How are you doing, Sam?"

It was late. LaSalle and Brody had left together, headed to their homes to get a little shut-eye. Brody was driving, intending to see her partner safely to his door. Pride lived at the NCIS office. He'd hauled out an armload of air mattresses-intended more as floatation devices than as places to sleep-for his guests, and gone off to bed himself. McGee was sacked out in one corner, Tony and Dean were in another, still awake and talking softly about the old missing persons files they had open on the floor between them.

For once Dean was attacking the research eagerly, and not just from necessity or desperation. There were classic cars involved and the old files were full of references to them and even pictures. He'd already solved a 1953 murder by pointing out that the obvious suspect's iron-clad alibi was a lie because of some arcane mechanical detail about the man's car.

Sam paused before answering to cast his brother a concerned, affectionate look.

"Good. I'm good."

Gibbs took a sip of his ever-present coffee. "You look like hell. Both of you."

"Unfortunately apt choice of words," Sam said wryly. "It's been hard, I'm not going to lie. Really hard. The mark is doing things to Dean. Scary things. But I'm proud of him. He's been open with me, and I know that's not easy for him. We are going to find a solution for this. I'm not going to let him down this time."

"If you think he'd be willing, Ducky and Loretta Wade, the coroner here in Jefferson Parish, have a list of tests they'd like to run on your brother and that mark on his arm. If it's affecting him physically, and violent mood swings generally indicate a physical problem, there might be something modern medicine could do to help him manage it."

"You mean like an anti-homicidal maniac pill?" Dean had been listening in from across the room.

Gibbs shrugged. "If nothing else, maybe they can vaccinate you against the urge to sing bad karaoke."

_NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN_

"You know, Brody, you don't have to walk me all the way to my door. I _am_ an armed federal agent. I think I can protect myself from the boogeyman."

"Uh huh." Brody strolled along the sidewalk at her partner's side, casual but alert, enjoying the night air. "And if I were being stalked by the boogeyman, would you leave me to defend myself?"

A stillness settled over the area, the tiny sounds made by insects and night birds that you don't even notice leaving a void when they suddenly ceased. The hair on the back of Brody's neck stood up.

She didn't hear the car approach. It was just there beside them, a dark, hulking presence and a rumbling engine that echoed and re-echoed from the surrounding buildings. She looked to her right and there it was, the battered Chevy Fleetmaster, just as LaSalle had described it and Dean Winchester had drawn it. The driver leaned over towards them, moving into the slash of yellow light from a nearby streetlight. For a bare instant, Brody was frozen with shock and disbelief, then she was reaching for her gun.

Christopher LaSalle moved more quickly stepping between her and the vehicle, opening the door and leaning inside.

"Oh, hey man," he said casually, voice warm and welcoming. "What's up? Has something happened?"

The thing behind the wheel reached one long bony arm for him. Merriweather Brody reached him first.

She grabbed his shoulder and shoved him behind her, slammed the car door and went for her gun. Before she could fire, the car and it's occupant were gone. It didn't drive away, or shimmy, or flicker out of existence, or anything. It was just gone, leaving behind the stench of decay.

She rounded on her partner, pulling himself up with a shocked look on his face. Brody punched him in the shoulder, not hard but not soft either.

"What the hell is wrong with you? You don't get in the car with the vengeful spirit! Didn't your mother ever teach you that?" She holstered her gun and wiped her palm on her pants. The car door had felt wet and slimy and she was surprised to find her hand was dry.

"It was Pride," LaSalle said, voice stunned. "I swear! I thought it was Pride. It was his car and it looked like him driving."

"No. No it did not. I got a very good look at the driver and, believe me, that _thing_ looked absolutely nothing like King Pride."

#*#*#*#

**A.N.:** Halfway there! Sorry about the wait. I'll get the next chapter up as soon as I can.


	4. Polk Salad Annie

**Author's Note:** Well, I've been snowed in for two days, so I had time to get another chapter done. I have to go back to work tomorrow, though, so the next update won't be so quick. Just two more chapters after this, I think, maybe three at the outside. Then I'll need to disappear again until I get the next book finished. I really do appreciate the reviews and favorites and follows, even if I don't have the time to respond individually! Thanks again for reading. Have a great day! :-)

**Death Cab For Cutie**

#*#*#*#*

**Chapter Four: Polk Salad Annie**

"I know you cared about Benny," Dean said. "I guess you know what happened. I am so sorry."

He was alone for the moment in the autopsy room at the Jefferson Parish morgue. Abby Sciuto was on the video screen, talking to him from Washington, D.C.

"I'm sorry too," she said. "Benny was a good person. You know, Dean, a lot of good people have loved you enough and believed in you enough to give their lives to support the causes you fight for."

The look he gave her was pure pain. "I know. And I-"

"-should maybe trust their judgment. You're a good man, and an honorable warrior. Benny and, and Bobby and Jo and Ellen, they believed in you. Sam believes in you. So do we. So you don't really have any excuse for not believing in yourself."

Dean sighed. "You're...very kind," he said.

"Yeah, I am. I'm also a genius and an excellent judge of character."

"You should listen to her."

Loretta Wade had come in quietly behind Dean. She was a regal black woman with a soft voice and an air of wisdom. "Abby, Sebastian needs you. Merri Brody got a good look at our ghost. She says it's female, mostly skeletal. We thought, since she's a trained observer, if we could get a close sketch of what it looked like, you might be able to-"

"-do a facial reconstruction!" Abby caught on immediately. "Like we would with an actual skull. What a great idea!"

"Yes, well, just don't tell Sebastian that. His head is large enough as it is."

Abby smiled brightly, then turned her attention back to Dean. "And _you_ need to come to D.C. when this is over so I can hug you. You look like you really need a hug."

He gave her a sad smile. "I got a better idea. You got any vacation time coming? Come to Kansas and we'll give you a tour of the Batcave."

She beamed at him. "_That_ is a date!"

When the screen had gone dark, Wade drew Dean over and had him sit on her exam table. She pulled a microscope over and looked through it at the Mark of Cain.

"Have you considered simply having it removed, like a tattoo?"

Dean reached out to a nearby work cart and lifted a scalpel from a tray of instruments.

"Don't tell Sam I did this," he said.

Before she could grab his arm and try to stop him, he'd sliced through his own skin, cutting off the Mark like someone peeling an orange. Blood coated his arm and the hand that held the knife. He held the strip of skin out to her. It was ragged, but unblemished. Then he offered his arm.

Under the blood, there was no sign of a wound, only the mark, pulsing angrily at his attempt to remove it.

Loretta took the knife from his unresisting fingers and glared at him. "Don't you do that again," she scolded.

"No point to it anyway."

"Have you tried any other drastic measures I should know about?" she demanded. "_Tell_ me, don't _show_ me."

He sighed. "I tried to amputate my arm. Blew up a circular saw. Blood everywhere, but no damage to my arm when it was all over."

"Didn't it hurt?"

"Well, yeah. But that's kinda not the point." He indicated the mark on his arm. "This thing makes me _kill people._ It turned me into a _demon_. I went after my little brother with a hammer. My _little brother_! I raised Sam. He's my kid. I tried to kill him." Dean was looking down at the floor, self-loathing infusing his voice and every line of his body language.

Loretta Wade took his chin in her hand and pulled his head up, forcing him to meet her eyes.

"Dean, are you suicidal?"

He laughed bitterly. "Wouldn't be much point to that. I die, I'm only going to wake up as a demon again."

"And that's your only reason for wanting to live?"

"You gotta admit, it's a pretty compelling reason."

"Mmhm." She released his chin, slid her hand down to clasp his shoulder. "My first instinct is to pump you full of antidepressants."

"Yeah, I appreciate the sentiment, but I can't take a chance on anything like that. I'm not taking any kind of mind-altering or mood-altering drug. I can't risk losing control."

"I hate to say it, but you're probably right. Would you mind lying down? I'd like to run some tests on your organ functions, get an EEG and do some blood work. I realize it's not a comfortable place to rest, given its normal use."

Dean swung his feet up on the table, put his hands behind his head and lay back.

"Meh. It'll be an interesting experience. You know, all the times I've died, I don't think I've ever made it into an actual morgue before? Not dead anyway. I've been a guest of Ducky's once."

Loretta Wade fetched a needle and the equipment she needed to draw blood.

"This is the _weirdest_ conversation I've ever had with someone lying there."

"You talk to your corpses too? Like Ducky?"

"On occasion. Though it's usually much more one-sided..."

_NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN_

"The forehead was higher and more rounded and the eyes sockets were just a little bit smaller and closer together."

"Any idea on eye color?"

Merri Brody gave Sebastian a look. "It didn't have eyes. It had some clumps of stringy hair. Dark, black maybe? In the light from the streetlamps there was a bit of a green tint to it, but that could have been moss or...or scum of some kind. Honestly, the whole thing had a bit of a green tint to it."

"It looked like Pride," LaSalle still sounded stunned. "I swear, it looked like Pride to me."

King Pride looked at the picture Sebastian and Brody were putting together and gave his second a stern look with an undercurrent of fond amusement. "That thing? Looked like me? Really, Christopher?"

LaSalle shrugged. "You have been dropping a bit of weight lately, King."

"From now on," Gibbs said, "he doesn't go anywhere alone. In fact, we should probably make that rule apply to everyone. What do you think? Is there a chance this thing will go after someone else, or is it going to fixate on LaSalle?"

Sam Winchester didn't answer. He was standing at the door to the lab, looking through the small window and back towards the room where he'd left his brother. Gibbs walked over to stand beside him.

"Sam? He'll be fine."

The younger Winchester shook himself. "What? Oh, right. I know, I'm just...I'm sorry. What was the question?"

"The ghost. Is it likely to fixate on LaSalle or is there a chance it'll go after someone else?"

"At this point, I really can't say. It would probably be a good idea for everyone to travel in pairs. Also, is everyone carrying salt, like we said to?"

The others nodded and Brody pulled a salt shaker out of her pocket to prove it.

"Probably best to make a rule that no one gets into a car without tossing salt at it first. This ghost can mess with your perception. Don't anyone take chances."

"So, is this what the so-called ghost looked like?" Sebastian asked, offering up the finished sketch.

"Yes," Brody said. "But, 'so-called'? I know it sounds outrageous, but I swear to you that I saw-"

"Oh, I'm not doubting that you saw what you say." The lab technician was an odd young man. _Quirky_ was probably the most positive description of him, possibly even generously positive. "I just don't think 'ghosts' is the most reasonable explanation."

Sam turned to him, a puzzled look on his face. "For a disappearing car driven by a skeleton?"

"Don't ask!" Pride said quickly, but Sam was already speaking again.

"What explanation would you consider reasonable?"

Pride sighed and rolled his eyes. "Too late."

"I'm glad you asked," Sebastian said. "I did some research on our missing sailor. Do you know where he was from? New Mexico. And we all know what's in New Mexico." He looked at them expectantly. When no one answered he sighed loudly and waved his hands in the air. "Roswell?"

"Aliens," Sam said, voice flat.

"Obviously he saw something he wasn't supposed to and the CIA used secret alien technology to take him out of circulation. They're only making it look like a ghost to throw people off the track."

King nudged Gibbs. "You wanna trade forensic techs?"

"Hell no."

Before the conversation could continue, there was a crash from down the hall, the sound of Dean shouting and a woman's scream.

_SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS_

Sam burst through the door into the autopsy room and stopped.

Dean had Loretta Wade backed into a corner. He stood in front of her, facing out. He was wearing a thin hospital gown, holding a knife that they both knew was useless against a ghost.

The phantom taxi crouched in the center of the room like a vicious beast, rumbling softly. Water dripped off the chassis and slime and clumps of rotting vegetation clung to the fenders and side mirrors. It sat facing to Sam's right, the passenger door towards the door into the room.

Christopher LaSalle entered the room behind Sam and the car door opened of its own accord.

"Oh, my god!" LaSalle exclaimed and darted forward. Pride and Gibbs both grabbed him and pulled him back. "Let me go! We have to help her!"

"What do you see?" Pride asked.

"What do I see?" he repeated in disbelief. "The ceiling fell! Loretta's trapped under the debris. She's bleeding, King. We have to help her!"

"I'm right here, Christopher," Loretta Wade said from the corner behind Dean.

In the time it took for him to spin and look at her and then turn back, the taxi vanished, leaving a lingering stench behind.

Sam turned to Dean. "You two okay?"

Dean stepped aside, letting the coroner come out. He looked disgusted. "I left my salt in my pants pocket."

"That _thing_ can come inside?" the doctor demanded.

"Car and all. I have to admit, I didn't see that coming," Sam said.

"But why did it show up in here?" Brody asked. "I mean, obviously it's after LaSalle, and he was in the other room with us."

Sam looked at Dean and their eyes met, one of those silent communications that they'd been doing all their lives.

"Autopsy room," Dean said. "Coincidence?"

"No such thing as a coincidence," Gibbs said firmly.

Sam turned back to Dr. Wade. "I think there's a very good chance that our ghost crossed your table at some point."

_NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN_

"How's New Orleans?"

"You know N'Orleans," Tony said. He had his phone in his hand, on speaker, talking to his girlfriend as he and McGee strolled down the street. "Beautiful women every way I turn, flashing their boobs at me, hoping I'll throw them beads."

"Just don't flash your boobs at them."

"Eww, gross! And he's lying," McGee said. "That's only at Mardi Gras. He's lying, Zoe."

"Oh, I know it. Don't worry. I'll punish him when he gets home."

"Ooh!" Tony grinned and growled at the phone. McGee rolled his eyes.

"Can you two not have these conversations where I can hear them? I really don't want your sex life in my head."

"I think we're upsetting Fogey McFogey," Tony teased. His phone beeped and he glanced at the screen. "Oh, gotta go. Boss is on the other line."

He punched a couple of buttons and held his phone up to his ear. "Yeah, Boss?" He frowned. "Really? Hmm. Yeah, will do...no, no luck on our end. We traced Albright's route backwards from the bar, following the GPS from his phone, all the way to the naval base. No junkyards or antique shops or anywhere he could have gotten anything that belonged to the ghost. I mean, as far as we can tell. We're on our way back to NCIS now. Okay, you too. See you when we get there."

While he was talking McGee had flagged down a taxi. Tony put a hand on his arm when he reached for the door, took a salt shaker from his pocket and sprinkled salt on the cab. Nothing happened except for McGee frowning at him. They got in the back seat and the cab driver peered at them in the rear view mirror, one eyebrow quirked.

"My friend is superstitious," McGee said. "The salt is for good luck."

The cabbie shrugged. "Man, this is New Orleans. You're hardly the weirdest passengers I've ever picked up."

"But we are in the running, right?" Tony asked.

He got a grin in return. "Where to?"

Tony gave him the address and they settled back for the ride.

"Tell me something," McGee said. "Have you been a cabbie in New Orleans for long?"

"Yeah, sure. Thirty years next April."

"Really?" Tim and Tony exchanged a look. "Have you ever heard of anyone operating a classic car as a taxicab?"

"Oh, sure. Renaissance Rides."

"Renaissance Rides?"

"Yep. High-priced taxi service, mostly used by rich tourists. Destroyed during Katrina."

"Completely destroyed?"

"Yeah. They had their entire fleet parked in a Quonset hut out at Pointe a la Hache. Storm surge washed right through the building, swept all those beautiful old cars off into the bayou. They never even recovered most of them."

"Old cars," Tony said. "Like, really old cars? Like, say, a 1948 Chevy Fleetmaster?"

The cabbie shrugged. "Yeah, probably. They had some sweethearts. It was a shame what happened to them. A damned shame."

#*#*#*#*


	5. Proud Mary

**Author's Note:** Sorry about the delay! Real life has been getting in the way. Not even real life writing. Annoying real life like having the flu and then getting stranded away from home in an ice storm. Anyway, here's the next chapter. One more after this, _maybe_ two.

**Death Cab For Cutie**

***#*#*#*#**

**Chapter Five: Proud Mary**

"Renaissance Rides. They were founded in the mid-eighties, the company went bust after Katrina." The last member of the NCIS team in New Orleans was Patton, a wheelchair-bound black man who introduced himself, with no attempt at modesty, as the computer genius and resident ladies' man. He had also, on meeting them, announced casually that he knew all about the Winchesters, probably more than they knew themselves.

"Don't tell me you've read those stupid books," Dean said.

"No. I mean I know you. As a matter of fact, I've done business with you. I don't think I'd better say any more, though. The statute of limitations hasn't expired yet."

Sam fixed the man with a critical eye. "We've done business with you?"

"Well, through an intermediary. An intermediary who has since disappeared, I might add. And I'm _not_ asking what happened to him." He looked meaningfully from brother to brother. "A little matter of _documentation_?"

"In other words," Pride said, "he supplied you with false ID's at some point."

"I am not admitting to anything!"

"Is this relevant?"

"No, but this is." Patton swiveled his chair back to face the computer screen and pulled up a document. "This is a copy of the insurance claim that Renaissance Rides filed after Katrina. And _this_ is your ghost cab." He used the cursor to highlight a listing for a '48 Chevrolet Fleetmaster. "According to their insurance records, they purchased the car in 1987 and it was washed out of the Quonset hut with the rest of the fleet during the hurricane."

"Gotta be it," Gibbs said. "Now what's the ghost's connection with the car?"

"Are there, I don't know, rules to this sort of thing?" McGee asked. "Could she have just found it floating in the bayou and decided she liked it?"

"Unlikely," Sam said. "Generally, for a ghost to be bound to an object, it has to contain their DNA. Sometimes a very strong emotional attachment can cause something to be possessed. As powerful as this ghost is, I'd expect both, actually."

"Could she have owned it at some point?" Dean asked. "Did the cab company have any female drivers? Was the car ever involved in an accident? Was anyone killed at the time the cars washed away?"

"All questions that are easier asked than answered," Christopher said. "In the confusion of the hurricane making landfall, the levy breaking an' all, most anything could have happened. And Katrina washed away a lot of things, including a lot of government records. The only real place to look for accident records would be the insurance company, and it's unlikely they'll still have records for a vehicle that was totaled a decade ago."

"The Social Security Administration should have employment records," DiNozzo pointed out, "assuming Renaissance Rides reported on their payroll like they were supposed to."

McGee raised his eyebrows. "Watch it, Tony. You know what you do when you assume."

"Yeah," the senior agent shot back, "I put you between me and an ass."

"That's not how that saying goes."

"Hey, it's not my fault if the saying is wrong."

"Patton can run the Social Security records," Pride said. "Who owned Renaissance Rides? Do we have any information on any of their employees? Is there anybody still in the city that we can talk to about that car?"

Tim McGee consulted his computer. "It was a Limited Lien Company. Founded by Evelyn Somerset."

"She still around?"

"_He_ is not. Died of a heart attack in 1997."

"Evelyn was a guy?" Dean shook his head. "Wow. How does an unborn baby piss his parents off enough while he's still in the womb to get saddled with a name like that?"

Sam shot his brother an amused look. "Do I have to remind you which one of us was named after Grandma?"

"Shaddup."

"Actually, Dean," McGee said, "Evelyn was originally a man's name."

"He knows," Sam rolled his eyes, a show of exasperation with an underlying thread of fondness. "We've been researching history records since we were in grade school. He just enjoys being difficult."

"Ah. Right."

"If he died in 1997," Brody said, "who ran the business after that?"

"That would apparently be his sister-"

"Bob," Dean offered, straight-faced.

McGee frowned at him. "Elfreda," he corrected. "She's in her seventies, I have an address for her at an upscale assisted living facility in the Garden District."

"We should talk to her," Gibbs said. "See if she can tell us anything about that car."

"Sam and I will come with you. No offense, but we've got a better idea what questions to ask."

"Is that a good idea?" Gibbs asked.

Dean looked down, face red with shame, and Sam bristled.

"I mean," the senior agent said, his tone dropping in a way that was reassuring and yet scolded them for misunderstanding, "shouldn't you be sticking close to LaSalle? He does still have a target on his back, as far as we know."

"He should be fine as long as he stays here," Sam said. "We've got this place warded pretty well. And Tony and McGee should be able to handle it if our spook shows up outside."

"Just don't leave that salt ring," Dean told the young agent. In addition to salting the doors and windows, they'd poured a ring of salt on the floor around LaSalle's chair.

Christopher LaSalle studied the salt with a thoughtful eye. "What if I have to answer the call of mother nature?" he asked.

Merri Brody gave her partner a bright, tight smile, fished around in the wastebasket beside her desk, and tossed him the empty soda bottle she pulled out.

LaSalle scowled, at it and at her.

"Oh, joy."

_NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN_

"So how are we going to explain to this lady why NCIS is interested in her business after all this time?"

"Simple," Gibbs told his old friend. "We just say, 'excuse me, ma'am, but your phantom car has been implicated in the disappearance of a sailor and we're hoping you can help us identify the ghost responsible.'"

Pride scowled at him and hooked a thumb at the Winchesters. "What do they usually do?"

"Pretend to be FBI," Dean said.

"I hear they have some very good fake ID's," Gibbs observed drily.

In early spring the Garden District was living up to its name. The senior community grounds were well-landscaped, lush with trees and flowers. Sam counted three gazebos, two in wood and one in red brick, and there were numerous groupings of lawn furniture tucked discreetly in among the vegetation. As they crossed a small, hump-backed bridge over a little stream, an 18-inch alligator slid off the bank and swam away. Dean stopped to watch it go, his expression wary.

"Really?" Sam asked. "All the big bads you've taken out and you're afraid of a baby alligator?"

"Hey!" Dean said, "never underestimate a determined little guy."

Sam clapped him on the shoulder. "Exactly what I keep telling you!" He shouldered in front of his brother and forged ahead. "Come on, little guy."

As much as he'd have liked to see Dean's face, the woman they were there to see was right in front of them now and he still didn't know how he was going to handle this. She sat on a wide swing, a tiny, wrinkled woman with a dandelion puff of white hair. She glanced up at his approach. The magazine in her hand twisted with the breeze and a glimpse was enough for Sam to recognize it. By the time he offered her his hand, he had a plan.

"Mrs. Wilson?"

"That's me," she said, shaking hands with him, a puzzled look on her face. "My friends usually call me Fred, though." (Sam could feel Dean being smug behind his back.) "What can I do for you young men?"

He sank into one of the lawn chairs in the grouping so he wasn't towering over her. "My name is Sam Singer," he said. "This is my brother, Dean, and our friends Jethro and Dwayne, who are being kind enough to act as our local guides. Dean and I are writing a book about the lingering cultural costs of Hurricane Katrina. Lost history records, important buildings damaged beyond repair, destroyed works of art..."

"My cars?" She gave Sam a shrewd look. "Do you actually know anything about classic cars, college boy?"

Sam gave her a dimpled grin, amused at the old nickname. "More than you'd probably expect, but my brother's the real expert."

The other men had seated themselves by now and Fred turned her skeptical gaze on Dean. "You look a little young to be an expert on anything," she said, "though I have been told I'm '_finicky_'."

Dean nodded to the copy of Popular Mechanics she was reading. "How much of the work on them did you do yourself?"

"Practically everything. I had a couple of young men to help me with anything that required brute strength, and I let them do simple things occasionally. You know? Change a tire, check the oil, replace the windshield wipers. Those cars were mine, though. Even when Evelyn's name was on the titles, they were _mine_."

He gave her a knowing look. "Did you name them?"

"And what if I did?"

Dean half turned so he could point back the way they'd come. "See over there? Between those two trees?"

She peered off into the distance. "My eyesight's not what it was...you mean the Impala? Nice. But just because you've bought yourself a nice car-"

"Her name's Baby," Dean interjected.

"Our parents bought her before we were born," Sam said. "Dean and I, well, we practically grew up in the back seat. Dean rebuilt her from the ground up after we got T-boned by a semi, then again after a tornado flipped her."

"Wasn't there another wreck after that?" Gibbs asked. "Not as bad, maybe, but it did some damage."

"Yeah," Dean said. "Sam fixed her up that time. I was, uh-"

"Laid up. Right."

"Well," the old woman said, "I suppose maybe you do know your cars." She pressed a button on the arm of her swing and in just a minute a young woman in a neat yellow uniform came up to see what she needed. "Carol, can you bring out some refreshments? And fetch me the big leather album off my coffee table, please."

"We don't want to put you to any trouble," Sam said.

"Nonsense. This is the South. Simple hospitality is never an imposition. Go ahead, gentlemen. Tell me what you'd like to know."

Pride brought out the list of vehicles that they'd gotten from the insurance records and for several minutes they discussed the old cars in general and the people who'd driven them. It had been a small company and she knew most of the drivers personally. Only a couple had been women and they were both still alive and driving cabs for other local fleets.

"I don't really approve of female cab drivers," Fred admitted. "Even for men, it can be such a dangerous occupation. Not that my girls couldn't handle themselves, but it's so hard to get blood off the seats."

"Amen," Dean agreed.

The woman in yellow returned with a trolley loaded with ice-filled glasses and pitchers of tea, a tray of cookies, and a bulky photo album bound in dark red leather. While she poured, their elderly hostess opened the album on her knees and began to leaf through the pages.

Dean moved over to sit next to her, where he could better see. She flipped over a page and he pounced on a picture of the '48 Fleetmaster. "I saw this in the listing. Looks like she was a real beaut!"

"He," Fred said with a small, sad smile. "That was Harry. He was my problem child."

"How so?"

"Oh, you know. Little things. There was a short somewhere in the electrical system and I never could find it. Lights flickering, dash lights would suddenly dim or brighten. He'd sputter and cough like he was about to die and then go on like nothing had happened. I spent more time on that one vehicle than on the entire rest of the fleet combined." She ran her fingers over the plastic covering the photograph and smiled sadly. "My drivers used to claim he was haunted."

"Haunted?" Sam asked, He locked eyes with Dean briefly, then glanced at the two older men, including them. Gibbs nodded slightly and Pride shivered, as if he'd felt a sudden, cold breeze. "Did they have any theories about who was supposed to be haunting it?"

"Oh, it was just a silly story." She sighed. "There'd been a young man who drove for us back around the turn of the century who was killed in a car accident."

"In the Fleetmaster?" Dean asked.

"Good heavens, no! If he'd wrecked one of my cars, I'd have found a way to resurrect him just so I could kill him again. He was in his own vehicle, on his day off. Speeding in the rain and he wiped out and hit a bridge abutment. When he was driving for us he usually drove the Fleetmaster. After he was killed and it started acting up, the other drivers said it was Kyle still reporting for duty."

She turned a few more pages, then settled on a group picture of uniformed drivers standing flanked by gleaming classic automobiles. She pointed out a man at the end of the back row and Dean leaned in close to look, then took the book from her and turned it so the others could see.

The dead cab driver was a stranger to them all, but he bore a strong resemblance to Christopher LaSalle.

_SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS_

"We think we might have identified your ghost."

The big screen in NCIS headquarters was split, half showing Abby and Ducky Mallard in her lab in Washington and the other half showing Loretta Wade and Sebastian in his lab across town.

"It's far from a definite identification," Loretta cautioned.

"Since we were working from a sketch of a skull," Abby explained, "we couldn't expect to be too accurate. When we ran it through the computers, we set the parameters pretty wide and wound up with over a hundred possible matches. Then we compared them with what we know of the ghost."

"We figure it's probable that our ghost died violently," Ducky took up the tale, "so we eliminated anyone who died a natural death. Then we looked for anyone among the remaining candidates who might have had a connection to the car."

"And you came up with something?" Tony asked. Gibbs, Pride, and the Winchesters were still out interviewing the former cab company owner. Patton had gone wherever it was he went when he wasn't working and the four younger agents were alone in headquarters.

As the morning progressed, the bright spring sunshine had given way to dark clouds. There was a storm rolling in off the gulf. While they talked, the first bursts of rain slashed against the building and winds rattled the French door.

"It's tenuous," Sebastian said, "but there is a connection."

"Her name was Marie LeMans," Loretta said. "She was a prostitute who was last seen in July of 1998. She was one of six women, actually, who fit the same profile and who disappeared between December, 1991 and October, 1999. Police suspected a serial killer was at work, but they were never able to prove that. Marie was the only one whose remains ever turned up."

"If there were six women who fit that profile, why do you believe Marie is our ghost?" Brody asked.

"One, because she died violently. She had been strangled. Two, because she crossed Dr. Wade's autopsy table, like the Winchesters think the ghost did. Finally, because of where she was found," Abby said. "Fishermen discovered her body. She was in the bayou, just off of Pointe a la Hache."

_NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN-NCIS-SPN_

By the time they got back to headquarters, the storm was in full force. From the parking area, they could see the French door leading to the office swinging wildly in the storm wind. They dashed through the driving rain. The scene inside the office was wilder than the storm outside.

Wind rushed through the building, carrying scatter-shot drops of rain and blowing away the salt with which the Winchesters had protected the building. DiNozzo, McGee, and Brody had formed a protective ring around LaSalle, weapons and salt held ready.

Even as the Winchesters and the two senior agents rushed through the door, the ghost cab materialized almost on top of the defenders, rear door already standing open. It came to rest between the two groups and a skeletal arm flashed out past DiNozzo and caught at Christopher.

Tony latched onto his fellow agent and was dragged into the back seat of the car as well. Dean yanked open the opposite door and dived for them, attempting to pull them through and out the other side. Sam was already firing salt rounds at the specter, the others flinging fistfuls of salt at it.

It happened in an instant. The cab was there and then it was gone, and Tony, LaSalle, and Dean Winchester were gone as well.

*#*#*#*#

**Author's note 2: **Sorry. Sorry! Please don't kill me! Remember, dead women can't write the next chapter. :-D I am sorry about the long wait on this and I'll try to get the next bit up a LOT faster. This is just the first weekend in a month where I haven't been sick. :-/

If you're on Facebook, I'm having a giveaway for a free copy of the audiobook of Death and the Redheaded Woman. I'll update my profile with a link to the post, if anyone would like to enter.

Thanks for reading and thanks again to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, or followed this story!


	6. Rollin' On The River

**Author's note:** As usual, I apologize for the wait. It seems like the closer I get to the end, the harder it is to write. Thanks to SkyHighFan, who pointed out that I made a mistake in the last chapter. The car is a 1948 Chevy Fleetmaster, not a '47. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed, favorited, or followed this story and an extra big thank you to those of you who've read my book! (I wish I could hug you!) One thing, if you don't mind me taking the time for this, when I last updated I mentioned that I was having a giveaway on my Facebook page. I haven't had any luck contacting the winner. Rebekah Juarez, if you're reading this, please get in touch with me?

Thanks again, everyone, and here's the next chapter! **BTW, the first few paragraphs are gross. If you have a weak stomach you might want to skip them, or read with one eye closed or something. Sorry! Just saying.**

**Death Cab For Cutie**

**#*#*#*#***

**Chapter Six: Rollin' On The River**

They were underwater, three grown men trapped in the back seat of a decaying automobile, sunk in the murky waters of the bayou. And they weren't alone.

Seaman Albright was there, too, or what was left of him was. Christopher LaSalle brushed up against the putrid, rotting corpse and bits of flesh came loose and floated around them. He fought down a gag reflex that could have only made things worse.

DiNozzo was fighting with the rusted old window crank, trying to roll down the window to make an escape route. Winchester was panicking, or so LaSalle thought. He was punching the rear window, Given the thickness of the glass and the water pressure pushing it in, that should have been an exercise in futility. There was something red, though, an angry red, glowing beneath his sleeve on his right arm. With his first blow the wreck shuddered. His second strike sent a spiderweb of cracks through the window and his third shattered it, sending a cloud of jagged glass shards out into the bayou.

LaSalle, desperate for air now, turned to swim through in a bid for the surface. Bony fingers closed around his ankle and yanked him back. He lost his fight to keep his mouth closed and got a few teaspoonsful of nasty water in his mouth and in his lungs. He started to choke and could feel consciousness slipping away. Christopher was aware of Dean Winchester turning back towards the front of the cab and then Tony DiNozzo was dragging him out and up towards safety.

They surfaced under a stormy sky. The worst of the storm had moved on, though winds still tossed the Spanish moss and dark clouds promised that the rain could return at any moment.

Tony pounded on his back. "You okay? Can you breathe? You gonna be okay?" He was peering back down through the murk. "I gotta go back. Dean hasn't come up."

"Yeah," Christopher said, coughing and fighting to breathe, "and that ain't the only problem we got." They were treading water in an empty section of the bayou. All around them, drawn by the scent of rotting flesh but repulsed by the presence of the supernatural, dozens of alligators waited restlessly.

_SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS_

"Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay."

Merri Brody was tense as a fist, curled in on herself in the backseat of the Impala, rocking as if the motion could make the car move faster. Sam was driving, racing along behind King Pride's vehicle, taking the shortest route towards the point in the bayou where Marie LeMans' body was found. It was the only lead they had. Gibbs was with Pride, who knew every back street and shortcut to get them to Pointe a la Hache as fast as possible.

McGee was in the front next to Sam, concentrating on his phone.

"Storm is still messing with the GPS. Tony's phone is going to voice mail...so's LaSalle's...so's Dean's."

"Are you sure it's the storm?" Brody asked. "Because if that thing took them somewhere where they're in the water, their phones won't be any use any more."

"Dean's will be," Sam said. "He's carrying it in a waterproof bag, with some salt and matches."

"He's what?" McGee asked.

By way of reply, Sam pulled a like bag from his own inside pocket and tossed it on the seat without looking over. It was a large Ziploc bag that contained his phone, a box of wooden matches, and a smaller Ziploc bag full of salt.

"Everything about this ghost suggested water," he said. "Seemed like a good idea to be prepared. He also exchanged one of his knives for a short iron rod, so he'd have a weapon that would work anywhere." He glanced back at Brody in the rear view mirror, his face serious and set. "He'll be okay. DiNozzo will take car of him and Dean will take care of them both."

"And who's going to take care of Dean?" she asked.

Sam's knuckles whitened as his big hands tightened on the steering wheel. His voice, when he spoke again, left no room for argument.

"Dean will be fine."

_NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN_

"Alligators," Tony said. "Lovely."

Emboldened by the presence of living prey, a few of the gators drifted closer. One monster, a big alligator who looked longer than the car they had just escaped, swam lazily towards them. It rolled in the water, exposing its lighter underside, then veered off barely five feet away.

"If one of them grabs you," LaSalle said, "punch it in the nose."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. And try to stay on top of it. Don't let it get you against its belly."

"I'd think the belly would be the vulnerable bit."

"It's how gators kill their prey. They trap it in their jaws, wrap their legs around it to hold it against their belly, and then take it underwater and logroll it until it drowns. Then they shove it up under a bank somewhere to ripen real good before they eat it."

The big gator turned to make a second pass. A couple of the smaller ones, tagged along in his wake.

"You know, there is such a thing as too much information."

"The nose," LaSalle said. "Punch them in the nose."

"Right. There's only five or six dozen of them. We'll just punch them all in the nose."

A fiery glow rose up through the water and Dean Winchester surfaced, finally, between the two agents and the approaching alligators. He was coughing and choking and slashing around himself wildly with a short, metal rod.

The gators flipped in the water with an odd sort of panicked grace and swam away with a speed and agility that such large animals shouldn't be capable of. With a wild, inarticulate roar, Dean chased after them. All the other alligators, circling the site of the submerged cab with its cargo of human meat, fled from his path.

"Follow him!" Tony said, shoving LaSalle in the direction Dean was swimming.

"Is that a good idea, with the mood he's in?" Christopher asked, even as he obeyed. "I mean, if even the _gators_ are scared of him..."

Dean chased the alligators all the way up the bank, stopping fifteen feet from the water to stand askance, shoulders hunched, metal rod dangling at his side. He held it loosely, like a familiar weapon, at ease but always ready. He was breathing heavily and when he turned his head from side to side and they were able to catch a glimpse of his face, his eyes were distant.

The gators didn't stop when he did and as Tony and LaSalle eased from the water, there wasn't a reptile in sight. "Stay back," Tony told the younger agent, keeping his voice soft.

He suspected Dean wasn't entirely with them just yet and he wasn't entirely sure what to do about it. Sam could have reached him, he knew, but Sam wasn't there. There was one other person, though, to whom Dean Winchester had always listened. John Winchester wasn't there either, but he had been a Marine and Tony figured all Marines were pretty much alike. He'd never met the boys' father, so he channeled Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

"Dean Winchester!" he bellowed. "Damnit, you stand down right the hell now! Do you hear me?"

Dean spun in surprise, blinked in confusion and dropped his weapon? He stumbled back, exhaustion and horror in his face, and held his hands out, palms up, before his eyes.

"What? I...what did I do?"

Tony went over and put a hand on his friend's shoulder. Dean was trembling now, shaking like a leaf and breathing fast and Tony suspected shock was setting in. His hands and arms were gashed from punching out the window and he was coated with his own blood. He needed to be warm and dry and back with his brother.

"What have I done?" he said again.

Tony patted his shoulder. "You just scared the crap out of a bunch of alligators."

_SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS_

Pride floored it down the last stretch of muddy gravel, slid around a sharp corner, and parked his car where it came to a stop in the deserted parking area beside a long, wooden dock. Sam Winchester put the Impala next to them and was out of his car before Pride and Gibbs had left theirs. A Navy airboat was already waiting for them, a young seaman at the tiller.

Gibbs, like McGee, was furiously dialing his phone, cycling between the numbers of the three missing men. He froze suddenly, half out of the car, with one foot still inside and his arm on the door.

"Winchester?" he demanded. "Speak up, I can't hear you."

The others gathered around him as he put the phone on speaker and held it out. It wasn't Dean's voice that came out of the device.

"Boss? Are you there?"

"DiNozzo?"

"Yeah. Funny thing, seems Dean had his phone in a waterproof bag."

"Is he there? And LaSalle?"

"We're all here, and in more or less one piece."

"More or less?"

"Yeah, uh, Dean went a little bit...nuclear."

"A little bit nuclear? A _little bit_? How do you go a little bit nuclear?"

"What can I say? He's a talented guy."

"Is he all right?" Sam leaned forward to speak into the phone.

"He's a bit out of it. Probably be better if you were here."

"We're on our way," Gibbs said. "We're taking an airboat just north of Pointe a la Hache. You got any idea exactly where you are?"

They heard DiNozzo's voice, a little fainter, speaking to someone on his own end of the line. "LaSalle, I think that question's for you."

Pride leaned in now. "Christopher? Can you tell me where you are?"

"Sorry, King. Nothing but trees and gators. Oh, and Pride? We found Albright."

King Pride's mouth turned down. "Dead?"

"Oh, yeah."

_NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN_

They saw the ghost before they saw the missing men. She was standing on the water in the middle of the bayou. Except for the walking on water routine and a faint glow that surrounded her like an aura in the growing dusk, she looked like a normal woman. She had long, dark hair, a pretty face plastered with too much makeup and the skimpy, come-hither costume of a cheap hooker.

Thunder rumbled overhead and the ghost flickered like the picture on a television set, cycling rapidly between the image of a pretty woman and the skeletal horror that Brody had described to them. She was staring intently at the shore and Sam Winchester and the federal agents, following her gaze, finally saw their lost comrades. They stood in a knot, Dean at the front holding his iron rod. From the looks of things, he was still protecting the other two, even if they had to help him stay upright.

"Come on, bitch!" he shouted. "You think you want a piece of me? Well don't just float there, sweetheart! Let's dance!"

Sam raised the shotgun he'd brought from the Impala's trunk and shot the ghost with a salt round, dispersing her. "Way to go, Dean," he muttered. "Antagonize the angry spirit. I swear I don't know why I don't have gray hair!"

They landed as close to their men as they could, got out of the boat and ran over. As he passed the young naval officer who'd driven the boat, Sam could hear him saying, "I saw a ghost! I saw a ghost! Holy freaking Jesus God and Mary! I saw a ghost!"

If he'd had the luxury, he'd have been amused, but Sam only had attention to spare for his brother. Dean looked wiped, the way he did when the mark had been fighting him, trying to torment him into killing. He strode up to him, putting a hand on his arm and giving him a shoulder to lean on.

By now Sam had become an expert in giving Dean the support he needed while letting him keep his dignity.

"God, Dean! Look at you! You're disgusting and you stink. And what the hell, Dean? You're covered in blood!"

"It's okay, Sammy. It's only my own."

"Yeah, that's not the definition of okay." He led him back towards the boat and the first aid supplies there. The others followed. McGee had taken Dean's iron pipe and Brody held Sam's shotgun with an easy familiarity.

The NCIS agents were checking on their own, making sure Tony and LaSalle were okay. It was Pride who glanced over at Dean and asked, "what happened to him?"

"That old cab's down there under the bayou," LaSalle said in his soft, Southern drawl. "Right under where the ghost keeps appearing. Albright's in the back seat. So were we, until Winchester punched out the back window."

"With his bare hands," Tony emphasized, holding up his own hands and wiggling his fingers. "He saved our lives. And then he came up and attacked about a hundred hungry alligators."

"Which probably also saved our lives," Christopher said. "Y'all can count me a full member of the Dean Winchester fan club!"

"He attacked an alligator?" Pride was skeptical.

"A whole herd of 'em!"

"Do alligators travel in herds?" Brody asked.

"A swarm?" Tony offered.

"A congregation," McGee said. "A group of alligators is a congregation." He caught a couple of raised eyebrows turned his way. "What? You asked."

"Okay," Gibbs said. "More important question. What are we going to do about our ghost?"

Sam was only half listening, concentrating on cleaning and wrapping the cuts on Dean's hands and arms.

"Marie LeMans," Brody supplied. "We think the ghost's name is Marie LeMans. She was prostitute who was murdered by a probable serial killer who killed six women in the late 1990's and then inexplicably stopped.

Dean raised his head as if it took great effort and met Gibbs' and Pride's eyes. "Oh, I think we know why he stopped."

"The killer was a cab driver named Kyle Murphy," Sam said. "He drove for Renaissance Rides, probably used their vehicles to pick up his victims. Marie's blood is probably soaked into the upholstery. That's why she has such a strong affinity for the Fleetmaster. She was murdered in it. She haunted it while it was still in use, but she hadn't built up enough power to do anything deadly yet. But then the hurricane came along and washed it into the bayou near the fleet headquarters, right where Murphy dumped her body."

"She's learned how to gather energy now," Dean said, "and she's learned how to use it, even while the need for revenge drove her mad. She's storing up what she needs until she has enough power to take the car out, to try to hunt down her killer. She isn't going to find him, though."

"Because?" McGee asked. In all the confusion of the cab taking LaSalle, Winchester, and DiNozzo, there hadn't been a chance for the two groups to share what they'd learned.

"Because he's dead," Gibbs said, shortly. "He was killed in a car accident in 2001. Now, we know where the car is and we can drag it up out of the swamp and take care of our missing sailor, but it's going to take days to get that thing dried out enough to burn. Which leads me back to my first question. What are we going to do about our ghost?"

**#*#*#*#***

**Author's note 2:** Okay, one more chapter, I think, to wrap things up. Sorry it took me so long to get this posted and thanks again for reading. :)


	7. Take Me To The Mardi Gras

**Author's Note:** Well, here we are at the final chapter. I'm sorry, again, that it's taken so long to get done! Thanks to everyone who's reviewed, favorited, and followed this story! I hope you all like the ending. It kind of took a weird turn on me.

I have to disappear again for a while while I take care of other writing obligations. I do hope to someday come back to this universe and when I do I hope to see you all again. :)

**Death Cab for Cutie**

**#*#*#*#***

**Chapter Seven: Take Me To The Mardi Gras**

"I seem to recall someone telling me once that he could burn anything, because he knew how to make napalm."

The chain on the winch groaned in protest as the old cab breached the surface of the bayou. Water poured from every crack and crevice and ran out the busted back window. It carried with it the stench of rank mud and rotting vegetation, of fish and salt water and human decay.

Sam made a face. He was standing halfway between the tow truck and where his brother sat on an upturned crate, reluctantly letting Loretta Wade treat the cuts on his hands and arms.

"You told them about that? I'm guessing you didn't go into details. You do remember how lucky we were that Dad and Bobby didn't find out?"

"I'm sorry." Gibbs strolled over to stand between the brothers. "Did you say _napalm_?"

Dean shifted nervously under the older man's glare. "Just a little bit. It was only the one time."

"I don't think it was _actually_ napalm," Sam hedged.

Gibbs smacked both of them on the back of the head, hard.

"Hey!" Dean protested. "You sure you want to do that? You know, I was a demon not that long ago."

"And your point is?"

Dean visibly deflated. "I might have been bullshittin' DiNozzo," he mumbled.

"Uh huh. That's what I thought."

Dr. Wade finished dressing his arms. "We'll need to keep an eye on these cuts, Sam," she said. "And I want all three of these men to take a course of antibiotics. That water had to be foul. I'd prefer to get ahead of the pneumonia before it has a chance to take hold."

One of the technicians operating the winch called over. "Dr, Wade? We've got more than one body in here."

She looked to where a group of NCIS personnel were standing around, peering into the sodden cab and pulled herself to her feet with a sigh. "Of course we have. We expected that, didn't we? I'm just very glad that there aren't three more."

"Not half as glad as we are," Christopher observed.

Dean glanced up to where a news helicopter circled. "So how are you going to explain this particular bout of crazy to the public?"

"We already got that covered," Pride told him. "Once we've confirmed that this is Seaman Albright, we'll release a statement to the effect that we traced him to Pointe a la Hache. Since we had reason to believe he was highly intoxicated, we speculated that he fell in the bayou and drowned. Following the pattern of the currents, we discovered this old cab, left over from Katrina, that had been acting as a sieve for drowning victims."

"Just for the record," Christopher said, "I plan to tell the truth." They all turned to look at him and he grinned engagingly. "But only to drunks at Mardi Gras."

"So, do you think this is it, then?" McGee asked. "Is finding the cab and pulling it up going to get rid of the ghost?"

"I doubt that," Sam said. "It will undoubtedly change her method of operations, but I don't expect it will stop her at all."

"So what are we going to do?" Brody asked.

Sam and Dean exchanged one of their speaking looks, an entire conversation carried on with a tilt of the head and a twist of the mouth.

"She's going after the guy who killed her," Dean said. "I think we ought to just give him to her."

DiNozzo gave them a long, level look. "But he's dead."

"Yeah," Dean grinned. "That does simplify things."

_NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN_

"It's acting like a cancer," Ducky said somberly. He was on the plasma in Pride's office, speaking to Gibbs and Pride from his morgue in D.C.. "It's a poor analogy, I suppose, but the best we can come up with under the circumstances. It's causing changes throughout Dean's body on a cellular level. The biggest visible effect the Mark is having is on his glands, ramping up his body's production of adrenaline and testosterone. That's what's causing the bouts of rage and the surges of abnormal strength that leave him shaky and wrung out afterward."

"Is there anything you can do to treat it?" Gibbs asked.

"At this point, no. We will keep looking."

"Did you already discuss this with Dean?" Pride asked.

Ducky nodded. "Loretta Wade did, and with Sam. They were disappointed, but unsurprised."

_SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS_

"Seriously, Dean?"

"What? You wanna talk to the dead guy, he's going to need a meatsuit to occupy. And it's not like the possum's using it anymore. He's in possum heaven. And, judging by the looks of this, he has been for at least three days."

"What do you reckon possum heaven is like?" LaSalle wondered.

"I don't know," Brody said, "but I'm guessing there aren't any cars." She made a face at the mangled roadkill Dean had carried in and dropped in the middle of the concrete floor. They were in an unused Quonset hut in a Naval facility down by the docks.

Dean came over to where Loretta and Sebastian had joined the two NCIS teams at the side of the building. "You sure you wanna be here? You know, the occult isn't really a spectator sport. This could get hairy."

Behind him, Sam was still drawing a devil's trap that formed part of an intricate design in the center of the floor. DiNozzo watched, one eyebrow raised and the other lowered as he considered the dynamics at work. He'd noticed it before. Dean was the guardian, looking after Sam first and everyone else second. If Dean was down, Sam stepped into the role, but with Dean up and able Sam took care of business and the only person he bothered to worry about was Dean.

"I'll take my chances," Loretta said. "I have perfect faith in you two and I'd never forgive myself if I missed the opportunity to see this first-hand."

"I'm just here for the aliens," Sebastian said.

"Aliens," Dean said. "Right." He rolled his eyes and turned away.

"I will admit," Pride said in his soft drawl, "I'd feel a mite better about this if I had some idea what we're doing here."

"Be careful what you wish for," Gibbs told him sardonically. "Knowing the Winchesters, you're apt to feel worse about it if you know what we're doing."

Sam snickered but let Dean answer.

"We know who our ghost is and we know who killed her. We're basically just going to summon them both and let them fight it out between them."

"Have you ever done this before?" McGee asked warily.

"Ah, sort of? There was a case up on the east coast once. A ghost ship. We figured out it was tied to the ghost of a sailor who'd been hanged for treason by his own brother. They'd kept his hand and made this thing called a Hand of Glory out of it. A really, really gruesome candelabra with occult powers. We got hold of the hand, but those things are worth a lot of money on a certain market and the person who was supposed to be helping us stole it and sold it before we could burn the damned thing. Rather than waste time trying to track it down, we summoned the two brothers and they basically annihilated each other."

Sam finished his artwork and came over to stand next to his own brother. "This case is, potentially, a little different, though."

"Different how?" Gibbs demanded.

The Winchesters glanced at one another again. Dean canted one eyebrow and shrugged slightly and Sam continued.

"We can't explain, exactly, how a person's final destination is determined. Intent seems to play a part, and what a given society will allow. For whatever reason, when we summoned the ship's captain, he was a regular ghost. He'd either remained earthbound or gone to heaven."

"Kyle Halsey was a serial killer," DiNozzo said. "So...?"

"Depends," Dean said. "If he was smart enough not to go with his reaper, then he's still hanging around as a ghost. Otherwise, he had an express ticket on the down escalator. One month in hell equals ten years topside and Kyle's been downstairs for right at fifteen years. Chances are he's a low-level demon by now."

"We have sigils drawn out to contain him either way," Sam said. "If he's a ghost, he'll materialize looking more or less human. If he's a demon, he'll appear in the form of black smoke, unless he's already been out of hell long enough to possess a meatsuit."

"What does that mean?" Brody asked. "Possess a meatsuit?"

"Demonic possession. They prefer live humans, taken-usually-against their will. We've seen countless occasions, though, where a demon kept a body and kept it moving after it had sustained lethal injuries."

"What happens to the human who was in the body when it was possessed?"

"While the body is alive, their soul is hostage. When they die and while the demon is still in control...we don't really know. Whenever we come across someone who's possessed, we try to save them if we can. We do what we have to in order to kill the demon, though." Sam looked from one to the other of the law enforcement officers, meeting their eyes. "I've been possessed myself. Believe me when I tell you that, unless you've got a ticket to hell yourself, you really are better off dead."

There was a long silence while they all reflected on this. It was McGee who spoke up first.

"So, if demons prefer living human hosts, why do you think Halsey will possess a dead-"

"_Very_ dead," DiNozzo interjected.

"Very dead possum?"

"I don't know that he will," Dean said. "But wouldn't it be cool if he did?"

"My brother has a strange idea of cool."

"So how is this going to work?" LaSalle asked.

Dean turned to point out various bits of the design Sam had drawn on the floor. "We've got separate circles for our two guests. For Marie, we have a trap that designed to contain a spirit. We're also going to put a salt circle around it, for good measure. We'll have to leave the salt line broken until she's inside."

"Why didn't you draw that to protect LaSalle?" Brody asked.

"This trap will keep a ghost in, not out. Before we knew who she was, we had no way to summon her. We'd have had to guess exactly where she was going to appear in order to trap her."

"Couldn't you have drawn it around Chris?"

"That might have caught her, but he'd have been in there with her."

"But she couldn't have taken him back to the bayou to try to drown him that way."

Dean gave her a faint, sad smile. "No, but, darlin', that don't mean that he'd have been safe."

"And the devil's trap is for Kyle," DiNozzo said. "With another spirit trap drawn around it, just in case."

"And another devil's trap and salt ring around the whole thing. We're going to stand outside the outer ring. Seriously. Everyone but Sam and I needs to stay the hell out of the circle."

Sam walked over to the side of the building and collected a small bundle, a rubber mat rolled around a few candles, some herbs, and a small bowl. Stepping carefully over the outer salt line, he set up just outside the spirit trap. "I guess it's showtime, if everyone's ready."

"Spongebob?" DiNozzo asked, with a wry smile.

Sam glanced over at him and flipped a corner of the mat up to reveal a pattern of primary colors. "Map of the fifty states. Something happened to Spongebob at some point and we had to replace our altar."

"We were deeply grieved," Dean said with mock solemnity, "and waked him with beer." He had his own paraphernalia and was setting it up beside the devil's trap. His looked more sinister, with black candles and dark herbs and a scorched copper bowl. He drew a penknife from the front pocket of his jeans.

"Young man," Loretta said, "if you're planning to draw blood with that thing, it better be sterile."

"Absolutely," he worked as he spoke, crumbling the dried plants into the bowl and lighting the candles. "I always carry a sterile knife in my pants."

Her eyes narrowed. "I will be disinfecting your arm later."

He waved one arm dismissively at her. "Bah. Mother hen." She opened her mouth to respond, but he held up a single finger, his demeanor growing suddenly serious, and the onlookers fell silent. He and Sam exchanged a look. Nodded once.

Working independent of one another, the brothers began their rituals. They were murmuring softly in Latin, different enchantments, both clearly ancient and bound by purpose. Sam spoke the name Marie LeMans and a wind ghosted through the building. Dust motes, flickering in the candlelight, gathered and swirled and coalesced in the center of the spirit trap, pulsed and glowed and flickered into the form of a beautiful woman whose youth and charm had been stolen by a hard life and an unjust death.

She fixed her attention immediately on Christopher LaSalle and her pretty features twisted with rage. "You killed me! Why? I never did anything to you!"

LaSalle stepped forward, dangerously close to the outer salt circle, and Pride and Brody both grabbed him. "Darlin', it wasn't me," he said. "I know that you're angry, and you've got the right. But it wasn't me."

Sam quickly completed the salt circle around Marie while DiNozzo filled in the break in the outer circle. Their ghost was trapped and her prison complete.

Dean's muttering had taken on a darker note. He used his penknife to slice his forearm and bled on the dried herbs in his bowl. "Citatus daemonium Kyle Halsey! Veniat ad me in vinctum!" He dropped a match into the bowl and the herbs flared up. The flames on the candles rose and narrowed. They burned blue. Black smoke spiraled up from the concrete in the middle of the devil's trap. It swirled in an angry column within the confines of the trap, like a maelstrom caught in a jar.

"See?" Dean said. "If he'd had a meatsuit already he'd have brought it with him. I bet this his first trip topside since he went downstairs." He turned back to the demon, muttering under his breath. "Possess the dead possum. Possess the dead possum!"

Sam half turned away from Marie's ghost. "Dude! Seriously? You sound like you're at a ballgame or something."

"I just think a demonic dead possum would be cool. Is that so weird?"

"A demonic dead possum?"

The new voice came from the shadows at the edge of the Quonset hut. Everyone turned as a small, dapper man strolled into the candlelight, carefully avoiding the edge of the devil's trap.

"Moose. Squirrel. What on earth are you Winchesters doing now?"

Dean and Sam stood and turned to face him, moving together to stand shoulder-to-shoulder.

"Nothing to interest the king of hell," Dean said.

"Nonsense. Everything you two do interests me. That's how I've managed to stay alive so long."

DiNozzo raised one finger and opened his mouth to speak. A look from Dean silenced him but he'd caught the newcomer's attention.

"Crowley," he said. "My name is Crowley. I'll just introduce myself, since the Hardy Boys here lack the manners to do so. And, yes, I'm the king of hell. And you're Anthony DiNozzo and that's a very nice suit you're wearing."

"Ah...thanks? You too."

"Yes, it is, isn't it?" Crowley preened, tugging at the hem of his jacket. "There are two ways to have the finer things in the afterlife. You can be very, very good while you're alive and be given them as your just reward, or you can be very, very bad and take them because you can." He turned back to the Winchesters. "So, seriously, what on earth do you want with this pissant little nobody of a demon?"

"What?" Dean asked. "You care about your minions all of a sudden?"

"I care if you're planning to somehow use them against me."

"Well, we're not."

"How did you even know?" Sam asked. "Are you monitoring every single demon now, in case we summon one?"

"I would if it were feasible, believe me. But in this case, you pulled him right off the rack. Much like you do your clothing, incidentally. And in hell, that sort of thing tends to get noticed. The demon who was disemboweling him raised the alarm."

"_Maaaaasssttteerrr_!"

They looked down. The dead possum was now standing in the middle of the devil's trap. He moved his long, rat-like tail from side to side in agitation and as he grovelled before Crowley he clacked his broken jaw and hissed out his words. He lurched nervously around in his confined area, too weak a demon to even straighten the twisted corpse so that he could stand straight.

"_Master! I am demon now! I will serve you well! Tell me anything. I will do anything! Just don't send me back with the knives and the hooks and the burny things!"_

"He was still on the rack?" Dean asked. He looked ill at the thought. "He lasted all this time?"

"He broke years ago," Crowley said dismissively. "No one ever needed him for anything. There was never any reason to let him off the rack."

Sam nudged his brother's shoulder. "I hate to say it, but you were right. A demonic possum is kind of cool."

"So, what?" the king of hell said. "You wanted a pet and you couldn't find a budgerigar?"

Dean sighed. "Our furry little friend here was a serial killer. One of his victims has been hanging around looking for revenge. We thought we'd show her that he got what was coming to him and maybe then she'd be ready to move on."

Together they turned to look at Marie, standing largely forgotten inside her own circle. She was standing perfectly still, staring at the demonic possum that had been Kyle Halsey with a look of horror and revulsion.

"You think she recognizes him?" Dean asked.

"I dunno," Sam said. "Maybe?" He walked over closer to her circle. "Look at him," he told her. "Do you see him? That's the man who killed you. He died a few years after you did, and he went to hell to get tortured and now, look at him. That's all that's left of him. He's been punished. He's being punished. You don't need to do anything. It's time now for you to move on. Do you understand me?"

Marie glanced from the demon to Sam and back again.

Down on the floor, trapped in his own circle, the demon possum spoke.

"_Marrriiieeee!" _it said. "_I remember Maaarrrriiieee!_"

As if a spell holding her had been broken, the ghost started to scream. She screamed hysterically, as if she would never stop. Flapping her hands in front of her face, she backed as far as the circle would allow, bounced up and down in terror and shrieked like a banshee.

Sam and Dean were both in front of her now, blocking her view of Halsey in his mangled meatsuit.

"Marie!" Sam said, confident and gentle, "it's okay. He can't hurt you anymore. I know you're afraid of him, but I promise you, you're safe."

"Seriously!" Dean was less patient, more commanding. "Stop screaming already. You're already dead. There's nothing to scream about."

She finally quit shrieking, looking at Dean as if he were crazy. "The possum is talking!" she babbled. "It's a possum and it's dead and it's talking and it's a dead possum and it's talking and it's all dead and _it's looking at me!"_

Crowley strolled around nearer the NCIS agents, an interested observer. "Congratulations. You've managed to transform your vengeful spirit into a terrified spirit."

"This sort of thing happen often on their cases, you think?" Pride asked.

"More often than they'd like you to know," Crowley said conversationally.

Sebastian sidled up to him. "So, um, tell me something? What planet are you really from?"

Crowley looked him up and down. "It's too far away to be on your star charts," he said, "but we have a secret base on the dark side of the moon where we build our magnetic weapons and the black helicopters your government uses to seed the clouds with mind control drugs."

Sebastian did a triumphant little fist pump. "Ha! I knew it!" He pranced away in an awkward victory dance, talking to himself all the while.

Crowley turned to find Loretta Wade glaring at him. He gave her a charming smile.

"I'm the king of hell, love. I'm supposed to be naughty."

Back in the middle of the room, Sam and Dean were still trying to calm down the hysterical spirit.

"Marie," Sam said, getting right in front of her and making eye contact, "I need for you to calm down now and listen to me."

She fell silent now, though she was still visibly trembling and flickering in and out like a video on a poor connection.

"You're dead, do you understand that?"

She nodded.

"Okay, and you've stayed behind because you wanted revenge. But you don't need to do that anymore. Your killer has been punished. He's being punished. And all you're doing, Marie, is hurting innocent people who had nothing to do with you. So it's time to end it. You need to move on now. Look for the light. Do you see the light? That's your way out. You need to go into the light and move on."

"But I can't," she moaned. "I was a bad girl. I did bad things. I'm scared of the light."

"More scared than you are of the talking dead possum?" Dean asked.

She looked to him and he stepped aside to give her an unobstructed view of Halsey.

Screaming once more, she turned and ran into the side of the spirit trap. There was a bright flash, like a sun flare off a car windshield, and Marie was gone.

Sam looked at his brother askance. "Nice going there, Mr. Sensitivity."

"What? It worked. And now Boris," he turned back to Crowley, "can have his pissant little demon back and we can all get on with our lives. So, you wanna exorcise the dead possum or shall I?"

"Now, now," Crowley said. "Not so fast." He walked around the outside of the outer demon trap, examining Halsey. "You know, I think I rather like him like this. He has potential. If you don't mind, I'll just take him like he is."

"What are you going to do with a demonic dead possum?" Sam demanded.

"I should think the possibilities are endless," Crowley said. "Popping him backstage at the Miss America pageant comes to mind." He turned to Dean. "You could come with me, you know. I know you think it sounds like fun. One more howl at the moon for old times' sake?"

"Lonely?" Dean asked. He sounded amused and not entirely unsympathetic.

"My brother isn't going anywhere with you," Sam said flatly.

Crowley scowled at him. "Greedy beggar. You're the one who did this to me. It wouldn't kill you to share." Deliberately scuffing the salt ring and the lines of the devil's traps, Crowley approached his possum minion. With a snap of his fingers, a cage appeared around the possum and he picked it up and turned back to them. "What?" he asked. "Did you think I was going to cuddle it?"

Before anyone could answer he and the cage and the possum were simply not there.

_NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN*NCIS*SPN_

The kitchen table and NCIS-New Orleans headquarters was laden with all manner of food. Dean examined a bowl of greens suspiciously.

"Man, this looks more like something to hunt than something to eat!"

"Greens are good for you," Sam told his brother, with a faint smile.

Dean sighed. "Yeah, I was afraid of that."

"So, where do you think she went?" Brody asked. "Marie, I mean? She didn't do anything bad in life, so far as we know, but then she killed a bunch of men after she became a vengeful spirit."

"Marie made it into heaven," Sam reassured her. "Cas called last night. You remember our friend Cas?" he asked Gibbs and McGee and DiNozzo.

"The angel," DiNozzo said. "Of course. Abby was hoping that he'd show up here to help."

"He would have, maybe, but he's been pretty busy. He's searching for his grace and for a cure for," he nodded at his brother, who had dropped a glop of greens on his plate with the air of a martyr.

"Have a beignet," LaSalle said, offering the elder Winchester a pastry.

He hesitated. "Are they good for you?"

"They're good for the soul."

"Hey, I'm all about that."

"And the angel told you that Marie got into heaven?" Brody persisted.

"Uh, yeah," Sam said. "This other angel, Hannah, contacted him. Apparently Marie showed up still screaming. Hannah wanted Cas to ask us to please not frighten the dearly departed into hysterics any more."

"So what happens now?" LaSalle asked.

"First thing tomorrow, Dean and I head back to Kansas and get back to searching for a way to remove that mark from his arm."

"You're taking Sebastian with you," Loretta Wade said. The forensic tech was still babbling happily about aliens to anyone he could corner long enough. "He can ride in the trunk."

"We're heading back to Washington in the morning, too," Gibbs said. "High time we all got back to business as usual."

"Then tomorrow will be time for goodbyes," Pride said. "But this is tonight. Tonight we're all together, with good food, good wine, good music, and good friends." He raised his glass and toasted each of them in turn. "Tonight," he said, "laissez les bon temps roulez!"

THE END

*#*#*#*#

**Final Author's Note:** Well, here we are at the end of the journey. Thank you, everyone who has joined me for this story! I love playing in this universe, but it wouldn't be any fun at all without all of you to share it with. :) As I said at the top of the chapter, it will be some considerable time before I'm free to return. In the meantime, I wish you all happiness and prosperity. As Pride said, laissez les bon temps roulez! (Let the good times roll!)

**P.S.**: If anyone is in the Kansas City area, I have a book signing Saturday, June 6, 2015, at the Crown Center Barnes and Noble. I'd love a chance to meet you in person and put faces with some of the names I've gotten familiar with! :)


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